Red alert for the robin after rainy summer sees worst breeding season in 25 years

About a quarter of all young robins were lost to cold or lack of food last year

Who killed cock robin? Well, this time it was the weather, according to ornithologists.

The second wet summer in a row has apparently been disastrous for one of our best-loved birds.

The number of young robins was down by 22 per cent last year, making it the worst breeding season since the British Trust for Ornithology began collecting records in 1983.

Around a quarter of all young robins were lost either through cold or lack of food.

Great tits and garden warblers also experienced their worst breeding season, with productivity down 35 per cent and 34 per cent respectively, according to the trust's annual survey. Song thrushes and blackbirds fared badly too.

Rob Robinson, ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, said: 'Birds are used to coping with one or two wet summers, but several in a row can cause real problems.

'Bird ringers will be going out to monitor birds again this summer and are hoping for a more normal year, particularly following this winter's cold snaps.'

Birds that suffered most in 2008 were those that bred towards the end of the season.

Robins have two broods each year. The early brood coincided with good weather, but the second coincided with the cold and wet weather.

'The young get chilled in the nest and some die because they are too cold,' said the trust's Paul Stancliffe.

'But the main reason is that the adults struggle to get enough food if it's cold and wet.

'At the moment it's probably not having a huge effect on population levels.

'But we may notice it in the spring. And if we have another wet, cold summer populations will be down significantly.'

Other birds that struggled last year included the dunnock, the sedge warbler, the whitethroat, the blue tit and the blackcap.

Not all birds did badly. The warm spring benefited chiffchaffs, which bred earlier in the year and missed the worst of the rain. Their numbers were up 22 per cent on typical breeding season.

And the long-tailed tit also saw numbers 16 per cent higher than average.

The findings are based on reports from 400 volunteer bird ringers who put up nets to ring birds in the same position from year to year.